Budget
Managing your nation's budget is an important part of running your nation in RTW2. Each month, a nation will have income and expenses. The balance is saved, and may be used over time. The unit of money is unspecified(though the developers have joked that the currency is "Game Balance Bucks"), but it is a typical assumption by fans that it represents thousands of USD or GBP, in the early 20th century era. This produces values relatively close to historical ship costs. As such, an expense given in game as "100 000" may be described as "$100M" by a player. Income Income is earned based on a nation's economy, colonies, tension levels, and events. A nation's basic economy grows over time. Most nations will grow by a small amount twice per year, though the United States will grow three times per year, due to their national advantages. Victorious wars may also increase the national economy - any points that are not used to claim colonies will result in "border adjustments", that increase the national economy by a larger amount than the colonies would. Colonies held by a nation will also increase national income. This effect is proportional to colony value. Colonies have a larger impact on income at the beginning of the game, and diminish in importance over time. Tension levels have a large effect on national budgets. Higher tension will give the Navy a larger share of the nation's economy as a budget, thus increasing the player's available funds. Wartime produces an even larger gain, and can easily produce a budget twice as large as a low-tension peacetime budget. (Exact mechanics unknown - in particular, what are the breakpoints, and how does tensions with multiple nations work?) Events will also affect budgets. Many events will offer +budget as an effect of a decision, though usually with a side effect of lowering prestige or increasing tensions. Some events will also offer -budget options, generally to lower tensions or trigger a disarmament conference. These will modestly affect the budget, though they add up over time. Note that a nation at peace with low tensions may experience large budget increases from a +budget, +tension event, due to the event effect being combined with the effects of increased tension. There are also events where a player will gain a lump sum of cash for selling technologies to other nations. Scrapping ships also gives a small amount of cash to the player. Expenses Money can be spent on a wide variety of things. Maintenance of existing ships and facilities will be a consistent expense throughout the game. Each ship has a basic maintenance value, which can be seen in the build screen. It is affected as follows: * Mothballed: 20% * Reserve fleet: 50% * Away from home region in peacetime: 120% * Wartime (unless reserved/mothballed): 150% * Repairs: (Unknown, higher than standard) * Old ships, more than 10-15 years old: (Unknown, disputed on forums, may be an increase or no effect) Facilities such as airbases and coastal batteries also have maintenance costs. Construction of new ships and facilities has a cost as well. This cost is again visible when building a ship. Different construction paces affect ship costs as well: * Halted: ~13% cost, but no progress is made. * Accelerated: 115% cost, but 10% faster construction. Events that increase or decrease construction time will also effectively add or remove a month's costs to the total cost of the ship. Naval aircraft 'have a maintenance cost. The cost is 8 per plane for most planes, though multi-engine planes and zeppelins cost more. ''(Details?) Players often disband planes between wars to save costs. '''Research costs an amount between 1% and 12% of the player's income. Amounts above 8% have diminishing returns. See technology for full details. Enhanced training gives the player's ships an advantage in Gunnery, Night Fighting, and/or Torpedo Warfare. The cost is 20% of the regular maintenance amount for one type of enhanced training, or 50% for two types. Players cannot take all three types. Intelligence is used to gain info on opponents. Intelligence gathering can result in the theft of technology, or in seeing ship data on enemy designs before they're built. Intelligence also tends to cause events that ratchet up tensions with the target nation. Intelligence-gathering costs 70k per level(low.medium/high) per nation. Fleet Exercises allow players to test out units against each other in combat without actually risking the loss of their ships. It also increases the crew quality of the involved ships. There is a one-time cost for an exercise, which varies based on the ships involved. Events also exist where a player can pay higher costs for a month to gain some benefit, or pay another nation for technology. Effects of Funds on Hand If the player has negative funds on hand, they take penalties. (Details?) If the player has more than half a year's gross income on hand, the government may re-allocate some of it to other priorities(i.e., take it from the player). This can be especially important on smaller fleet sizes, where the construction of a capital ship may require much of the year's naval budget.